Lambir Hills

After spending a single and uneventful night in Miri (during which we managed to see the community shield) we set out for Lambir hills. We had to go via the long distance bus terminal anyway and so decided to book our onward bus ticket to Kota Kinabalu. It turns out only one bus company runs this service and so the price was astronomical. In the search of a discount we tried lying, charming, complaining and flirting as well as offering oral hygiene advice. I am not sure which tac it was, but one of them worked and we were delighted to gain one up on the frustrating Borneo beaurocracy.

We arrived at the park and, after going through another ‘you really want to camp’ episode, pitched the tent and went to get some lunch. For some reason, and I still have no idea what it was it took us about 30 minutes to be served because every time the waitress looked at us she just burst out laughing, Robbie was convinced it had to be my fault.

It was only a 15 minute walk to a beautiful waterfall with a large pool and a beach. We wasted no time in getting into swimming gear and heading over for a relaxing swim in some of the most stunning surroundings I have ever seen.

It turned out we were the only tourists in the entire park that night, the café closed at 6.30 and there was a power cut soon after. We were forced to spend a memorable evening star gazing and having torches shone at us by Malaysians who had never seen a tent before!

Day 2 in Lambir and we resolve to climb the largest hill in the park in order to see the canopy from above. After about 2 hours of wondering aimlessly in the rainforest we arrived back at HQ, we didn’t really realize how lucky we were until later.

The real disaster was the small shower of rain, while the tent is only semi waterproof to begin with, it is not at all waterproof when the window is left open, my sleeping bag liner was soaked , all or Robbie’s stuff was fine. He informed me that the window was after all my responsibility. Hmm, I don’t remember agreeing to that!

So, undeterred we sat down for some lunch and set out for a slightly smaller hill. This time we found the path without incident. Unfortunately out long climb was not rewarded by clear skies, but we saw enough of the canopy to be satisfied.

After arriving back at HQ we packed up the tent and went to stand by the edge of the road to flag down passing coaches back to Miri in order to spend yet another night there. When we got to the guesthouse Alex was already there, avec new girl in tow. We spent the evening chatting and watching movies. We spent a long time chatting with a man named Dennis Along Along who worked at the hostel. Turned out this bouncy and optimistic man used to do very specialized work on Malaysia’s many oil rigs, being flown all round the country for his expertise. When he got kidney failure the poor man was tied to Miri by 4 times weekly dialysis, I could never have guessed something like that had happened to him, such is his outlook on life.

It was a relatively early as we had an 8 o’clock bus the next morning.